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5. At Sir A Galsworthy's suggestion we also wrote to Mr A Cumming-Bruce who was Mr Lee's private secretary at the time (Mr Cumming-Bruce is at present Civil Adviser to the General Officer Commanding in Northern Ireland). The following is an extract from his reply:
"I find it impossible to speak with accuracy of Mr Lee's
But commitment at the meeting with EX Co and Leg Co members. knowing Mr Lee and recalling the discussions we had leading up to that meeting I am sure he intended, as Arthur Galsworthy says, to make a warm but non-committal statement of willingness to see what could be done in London. He knew very well that
he was tied hand and foot by Treasury restraints and if he had made any commitment contrary to this I should certainly have remembered this as it would have been a major reversal and scrupulously documented."
6. It is also perhaps worth recording that we have in the departmental files a note by Mr Moreton dated 2 July 1969
This makes it clear (Mr Moreton was Mr Wilford's predecessor). that, at any rate with the Governor and with the Director of Education, Lord Shepherd gave no undertaking whatsoever.
7.
With things as they are at present I can see no hope of obtaining the agreement of other departments to any proposal involving a grant or even a loan of aid funds to Hong Kong. Mr Royle will remember that it was only with the greatest difficulty that we secured agreement to the grant of £400,000 for the technical institutes. It looks as if Hong Kong's surplus during the financial year 1970-71 will be well over £40 million //.We shall be taking this point up generally in our exchanges with the Unofficial Members over the size of the new defence contribution and I think that that is all we can do.
30 April 1971
бай
É o Laird
Hong Kong Department
cc Sir L Monson
Mr Wilford
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